
Great piece by Jodie Burke in the LA Times Saturday about how the recession and increased unemployment rates have led to huge lines of people trying to get work as television and film extras - or "background artists", as they say. However, the recession has also led to studios tightening up, and there being less work for these background artists. Not to mention the fact that the number of scripted shows on TV which could even hire these folks decreases every year, giving way to "reality" programming, which has no use for background artists.
And then another great piece in the New York Times yesterday by Sarah Toland, an editor in a "protracted period of unemployment", about her utterly miserable experience working as an extra on the new Cupid, which premiered on ABC last week.
Great pieces, but depressing. So, to counterbalance the doom and gloom, we've included video of probably the funniest scene from the show Extras, in which Sir Ian McKellen explains acting in the most obvious terms possible to flummoxed former extra Andy Millman (Ricky Gervais). Now all of us can laugh again...
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No Hiring, Only Firing In The TV Industry
"Real Housewives": Real Broke
Kathy Cox Of "Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader": A Really Good Person In A Really Bad Economy